


MIND-WIPED (A Hournite Fic)

by MeJacinta



Category: Stargirl (TV 2020), Stargirl - Fandom
Genre: F/M, HourNite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:20:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26817979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeJacinta/pseuds/MeJacinta
Summary: Chuck: Hello, Beth. It's been a while.Beth: (awkwardly) So I hear.Chuck: May I reintroduce myself?Beth: (taking a moment to think) Maybe you should, Chuck. (surprised at how naturally the name rolls out of her tongue) Wait, it's all right if I call you that, right?Chuck: It was your preference on our last session. Is there anything you would like to know?Beth: (bristling for a second) Actually...yes. Could you...run me back to the accident I had? What happened to me?
Relationships: Beth Chapel/Rick Tyler, Courtney Whitmore/Cameron Mahkent, Pat Dugan & Courtney Whitmore, Pat Dugan & Rick Tyler, Yolanda Montez & Rick Tyler, Yolanda Montez/Henry King Jr, hourman/doctor midnite
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I fell in love with Stargirl, but even harder with its characters Beth Chapel and Rick Tyler. This short novel is set after the events of the season 1 finale. Stick around to see how far it takes the team but mostly Beth and Rick :)
> 
> NOTE: Beth has an accident and goes through amnesia. The team must fight to get her to embrace Doctor Midnite again, so that they fight off the new ISA.

PROLOGUE

Rick’s heart was still thundering in his ears as strangers in scrubs, a blur of blue and green, rushed past him, their shoes against the white tiles squeaking irritably.  
The emergency ward of Blue Valley Hospital was packed and Rick could barely breathe---even though Yolanda’s side, pressed against his arm, offered a semblance of consolation.  
He didn’t want to remember why they were there but the scarlet smears of blood on his shirt made the memories rush back.  
It could’ve been anybody else. Just not her. Why her?  
Rick clenched his jaw as he glimpsed the face clock across the hall, its arms ticking away, one second closer to reprieve or disaster.  
Damn time! Damn the Pit Stop! Damn school and his Chemistry equations!  
If only his dad had invented a way to turn back time, to alter the order of events just a bit, if only…  
“Finally!” Yolanda let out a cry of relief, jumping up from her seat.  
Rick looked up to see Pat and Courtney jostle their way in.  
Took them long enough. But Rick knew they weren’t to blame.  
“There’s a traffic gridlock out there!” Pat explained. He sounded tired and frustrated. “People want to leave town.”  
“Guys, how’s Beth?” Courtney’s question hit Rick like a blow of her Staff to the belly.  
“What happened?” Pat sighed, a cloud of worry coming over his face.  
Yolanda began answering but Rick couldn’t hold it in any more.  
“It was all my fault,” he heard his voice tremble.  
And instead of watching the confusion and shock on Pat and Courtney’s faces, Rick rose up to dash for the exit.

CHAPTER 1

(Earlier that day)

Rick barely heard her come in until her mustard yellow vans were staring him in the face. He glanced up from the jacked tire at Beth, the tension in his temples growing.  
“What is it this time?”  
Beth flashed her pearly white smile, but Rick knew from how it lingered that she wanted something badly. A glossy magazine popped out from behind her back in a flash. “Something to peak your interest, nothing much,” she chirped, shrugging her woolen shoulders.  
Rick stifled a grumble as he accepted the magazine, briefly eyeing Yolanda over at the small study table in the corner of the Pit Stop. Courtney and Pat were out (family business, they’d said) and wouldn’t be back till around five in the evening to close down.  
“You won’t believe how hard finding one of these is in Blue Valley,” Beth chattered on, nervous laughter in her voice. “Three libraries—three, can you believe it? Mr. Hodge the librarian said this magazine is the last one in Blue Valley with monumental groundbreaking research—the formulas in it are timeless, basically better than modern science. Disputed but accurate…”  
“Okay, okay! Fine, I’ll look at it later.” Rick conceded, dropping the spanner from his other hand to hold Beth’s magazine with both hands. He leaned on the truck behind him to lazily peruse through the pages.  
It had been a long week and that was minus the last three months of Beth’s incessant obsessing over bringing Chuck back. Although Charles McNider’s goggles were technically gone, his spirit seemed to weirdly live on through the mouthpiece that was Beth. If Rick hadn’t known her so well he would’ve been seriously worried for her.  
“I was thinking we could go through the formulas together?” Beth was biting her lip in uncertainty, watching Rick’s face for a reaction she knew he’d give.  
“Beth--”  
“I just think it’s kinda easier to understand complicated stuff when we’re teaming up than when we’re alone. Besides, it’s going to be a lot of fun.”  
Fun was hardly it, and barely a concept Rick was to fully understand no matter everyone’s insistence. Besides, what time did he have for pleasantries and picnics when all he could think about…dream about…was Grundy returning to Blue Valley in his monstrous glory? Clawing at whatever little semblance of happiness and achievements Rick had gathered in his time spent with the JSA and the Whitmore family?  
What if the only reason Rick had released Grundy wasn’t because he had forgiven him, but because he had glimpsed in the former scientist's eyes that night in the ISA tunnels a reflection of the monster within himself, clawing and thrashing its way out to devour everyone else eventually?  
“Beth, you need a real life,” the words slipped out.  
There’d been no malice in them, but now Beth was looking like a person who’d been punched in the face.  
“Chuck means a lot to you—I get that,” Rick sighed, “But by the end of the day life can’t always be about the JSA or artificial intelligence---”  
“Chuck is my best friend,” Beth yelped, like a hurt animal.  
It gave Rick pause. He’d not expected an extreme reaction at all. Beth and he argued on topics a lot but never like this; with tears and emotions.  
Even Yolanda stopped what she was doing to watch what was happening.  
“Beth, Chuck’s a program. He does his thing and can be fixed, but what about you?”  
“Doctor Midnite can’t be Doctor Midnite without Chuck, Rick,” Beth snapped, her eyes gleaming with conviction.  
“She has a point,” Yolanda called out from her desk.  
“Yeah,” Rick huffed indignantly. “Except that you, Yolanda, have a boxing tournament to prepare for. Court has an internship at her mom’s office and I have auto-repair gigs outside of life as a superhero, ‘kay?”  
The backlash was a mouthful, but Rick couldn’t state it any more differently for Beth to understand his point.  
She was still starting at him with those pitiful, wide eyes, but Rick was determined not to fall for them this time.  
“It’s been three months since the ISA went under, Beth. Life is moving on and maybe you should try it too. Apart from the JSA work and fixing Chuck. That’s all I’m saying.”  
He crossed the room for Pat's red tool box, the magazine rolled in his hand now slippery with sweat. “I’ll see what I can do with the formulas. If what the librarian told you is true we can fix Chuck in three months tops.” He pretended to rummage through the screws and spanners in the toolbox just so he’d keep his back to Beth. Rick was good at fights with his Uncle Matt, just not when it came to handling girls.  
“It’s all right!” Beth surprised him.  
Rick turned round to face her but she was already by the exit of the garage door, her flowery bad dangling over her shoulder. It was impossible to clearly see her face against the bright afternoon sun.  
“You have a point, Rick. Sorry for taking up your time.”  
Then she was off across the street before Rick could whisper a goodbye. The girl walked so fast for someone her height.  
“So that’s your idea of a pep talk, huh?” Yolanda exclaimed, rising from her chair. “Couldn’t you have been less,” she drew quotes in the air, “I don’t know—confrontational? You saw Beth. She was crushed!”  
“I’m doing her a favor,” Rick argued. He really was.  
Rick grew up alone, dependent on no one, and he’d survived. Individuality wouldn’t kill Beth the way Yolanda was suggesting.  
He reached for a towel beside the toolbox and wiped the grease and sweat off his hands and Beth’s science magazine. “Look, I’m not antagonizing Beth.”  
“Fine, you’re not,” Yolanda agreed. She piled up her sports books and fetched them into her strong arms with one haul. “But I’m not sure Beth knows that, Rick. She’s…different. Maybe you should understand that for a change.”

(Present day)

The night was alight with red and blue lights from incoming ambulances when Rick stumbled out of the hospital building. Casualty were still being wheeled in over the low ramp connecting the entrance of Blue Valley hospital to the ample parking lot as relatives and families hovered every new arrival to spot loved ones.  
Rick couldn’t believe he was back here. He hated hospitals for the single reason that it was where he first saw his parents after Grundy murdered them. Uncle Matt hadn’t been keen then on shielding him from seeing the gore of it all, and henceforth Rick had known hospitals for nothing else but death and hopelessness.  
Now Beth was somewhere in there fighting for her life. The only child to a doctor could end up dying in the same place her mother worked…all because of Rick.  
“Hey, watch it!” a jerk with a cigarette in his mouth mumbled as Rick bumped shoulders with him.  
If only he knew how Rick was rife with desperation for a real fight. “Watch yourself!” the threat ripped from his mouth, a lump still jammed in his throat. “You’ll burn down the place with that thing stuck in your dirty mouth.”  
“Kid,” the smoker held up a forbidding finger as if that were enough to scare Rick off. “Anyone ever taught you--”  
“My parents are dead, you ass-hat!” Rick thundered, surging forward so that the smoker stumbled back. “Try someone else.”  
“Hey, kid—I’m sorry. My condolences.”  
Rick turned to keep walking. He hated it when people felt sorry for him. Even more so when he let small glimpses of his pain be seen by others just as he’d done.  
Who could he attack next? What else could he do to keep the storm churning in his chest from exploding and breaking his well kept walls? What could he do to stop feeling this way? What could bring Beth back?  
BUMP!  
“Aaargh!” Rick rubbed his shoulder as the stranger he’d run into pulled back to frown at him.  
He was a wiry guy, tawny and with sleek black hair pushed to one side of his face.  
Rick immediately recognized him. “You’re the loser that was with her!” he growled.  
The boy furrowed his thick brows. “Do I know you?”  
“Beth was with you tonight and you did shit to protect her!” At that point, Rick didn’t care whether the stranger understood anything or not.  
His fist flew out in front of him as if driven by an invisible force, crashing into tough bone as it smashed into the stranger’s face.  
Rick’s victim landed on the wet ground with a gasp. “You crazy or what?”  
“It’s your fault Beth’s here!” This time Rick pulled out his phone to show the stranger the picture.  
He hadn’t liked it when Yolanda showed it to him, and he certainly liked the boy with Beth in the picture less in life size.  
“You left her there! Lying there,” Rick blinked away tears as he relived the moment with Beth in the rubble, her limp body pressed against his chest. “You never went back for her—I did. Because you never cared.”  
“RICK!” It was Pat.  
The distraction gave the boy on the ground enough time to get up, but Rick was not letting him go anywhere just yet.  
“Buddy, let it go. This isn’t the way.” Pat squeezed a firm hand on Rick’s shoulder as a warning, one that Rick was willing to respect for Beth’s sake.  
“Young man, are you okay?”  
“I didn’t leave Beth tonight. She left me.” The boy seemed just as tense and pumped up for a fight like Rick was, class aside.  
But to Pat he nodded respectfully. “I’m okay, sir. Will Beth be fine?”  
Rick didn’t like the way Beth’s name rolled fondly off the boy’s mouth.  
“Is that why you’re here?” Pat sounded just as confused as Rick was. “How’d you know she was here?”  
“I didn’t know. It’s just my dad, he’ll be taking questions from the press.”  
“The press?” Rick scoffed.  
The boy leveled him with a stare before swiping the sleeve of his leather jacket against his busted lip. “Yes. Tonight’s gala was at my dad’s place. He needs to offer condolences to the people of Blue Valley.”  
“Wait, you’re the son of Keith Diaz?” Pat was gasping like God had just dropped from the sky.  
Rick bristled. It’s not like the class of this dude could outweigh the graveness of what had happened to Beth, who’d gone on some sort of date with that rascal.  
“Yes, I’m Robert Diaz.” The Robert boy glanced at Rick uncertainly, probably remembering the fist he took to the face. “Look, man. I’m sorry about Beth. You have my word she’ll get all the help she needs.”  
“Thank you,” Pat interjected, filling in the silence on Rick’s end.  
Seeing there was no more to be said, and that a sizeable crowd had gathered about to watch the drama, the Robert boy walked away.  
“What the hell is a Diaz anyway?” Rick blurted out, his heart still thundering with anger. “I’ve never seen you like that Pat. Literally like a dog with its tail between its legs!”  
“Stop, Rick!”  
“For what?”  
Pat pursed his lips before letting out a sigh. “You just punched a millionaire’s son in the face. Keith Diaz is thee top investor settled into Blue Valley, Rick. You better pray to God he doesn’t sue you before he gets this town out of the rubble! ”  
*End of chapter.*


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Each of the JSA members deal with their fears and insecurities at the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of angst coming your way.

(Earlier)

The setting sun was pulling its rays off of the neat roads and tidy lawns of Blue Valley when Beth finally set foot on the Welcome mat outside her home; sweaty, hot and palpitating.  
She couldn’t feel her feet because she’d found padding down several blocks to try and clear up her head a better option over fuming in a public vehicle and drawing Blue Valley gossips and busy-bodies. And try she had, not to overthink or fume; but still Rick’s words played on repeat in her head, as if Chuck were running an audio tape in her ear.   
“Beth, you need a real life,” Rick had said, like he were talking to one of his lifeless cars. “Life is moving on,” he had added without even looking at her. “And maybe you should try it too.”  
Moving on, Beth pondered as she pushed her way into her house.   
She squinted at the white marble wall and the sparkling plant vases at the entrance. Wow! Mom was moving all the way up with redecorating.  
“Dad?” Beth called mechanically on her way up the staircase. “Mom? Am home!”  
Her room was in the same mess she’d left it in the morning. She tossed her bag on the ground, to shove her face flat on her bed.  
“Rick Tyler, you’re a jerk!” The anger blasted out of her at last, rattling her throat.   
She had a right to at least state the obvious, even though Courtney and Yolanda couldn’t. Rick had been way too far up the ‘jerk meter’ these last couple of weeks; more erratic, withdrawn and snappish. Courtney and Yolanda would’ve argued that was ‘Rick being Rick’, but Beth was far better at observing things than them; just like Chuck.  
She could tell Rick was hiding something behind his auto-repair work and that self-righteous rant he’d dropped on her. She could tell how the human connection between people scared the Bejesus out of him. And if Beth wasn’t being paranoid, she could tell that Rick wanted a best friend too just like Beth had Chuck and Yolanda had Courtney. But he could never bring himself to admit it!  
He flipped out at the hint that Beth and him work together on Chuck. He claimed Beth needed to get a real life. He claimed Beth wasn’t ‘moving on’.   
Why was Rick scared that Beth wanted him to be her new friend? What did he have against Chuck? Why was he so against fixing Chuck?  
Beth didn’t get it. Was Rick…jealous of Chuck?  
“But I understand him,” Beth groaned, sitting up on her bed. Much as she hated to admit it, it was true. “Losing his parents like that, being alone for so long…it couldn’t have been easy on Rick.”   
This time she spoke out loud to Chuck, just as she’d been doing the past few weeks, so he could hear her wherever he was. “Rick can’t understand what having a best friend is like. And I honestly don’t think he wants to.”  
Deep down, Beth knew that Rick hadn’t meant to be hurtful or harsh to her. It just came more naturally to him to sound that harsh and hurtful when anyone disagreed with him. That’s what all this really was: a disagreement. Beth could fix it in no time…  
“Chuck’s a program and can be fixed, but what about you?” The words rushed back to Beth before she could hush them out, and her face suddenly pulsated with heat at the memory.  
Those specific words stung more than the others, not because of how Rick had said them but because she knew deep down they were true. Her chest tightened.   
“No, I’ll prove him wrong! I’m not that anti-social.”  
If Rick were to talk ‘anti-social’, how about him hiding behind his cars and his auto-repair work all day so as to prevent from actually talking to anyone, or having a nice time? He did it ALL the time! He said parties were ‘lame’ and that family dinners were ‘awkward’ and ‘unbearable’. He turned down offers to sleep at the Dugans’ house or at the Pit Stop. He preferred to fight with his abusive Uncle Matt as if there were no other people in the world to offer him refuge, to care for him, to talk to him.  
“You know what? Never mind Rick!” Beth huffed, frustrated. Why did she care so much to know what was up with him, when he didn’t want that?  
Beth thought about everybody. Maybe too much that she didn’t pay herself any attention. That was exactly what Rick had been referring to…exactly what had caused the rift in the first place. But was he right?  
“Maybe it’s time I have my own thing,” Beth muttered. Defeat was a hard pill to swallow. “Apart from you, Chuck,” she said to the air, “apart from the JSA.”  
And one last thing.  
“Oh, but this isn’t for Rick!” Beth pouted in defiance. “It’s for me.”  
“Honey, who’re you talking to?” It was Mom.  
Beth froze, her mother’s cat-like eyes holding her in place. “No one! Just my friend over the phone.”  
Gosh, I suck at lying, Beth regretted inwardly. Then suddenly she was wondering if Rick had sensed her lying about being ‘fine’ with his comments.  
“Or is it a boyfriend I don’t know about, Beth Chapel?”   
“Boyfriend?” Beth snorted, the weight in her chest lifting a little. “You’ll make a good comedian, Mom.”  
It amazed her sometimes, the kind of blind faith parents had for their children’s progress. If Beth hadn’t known her parents any better, she’d think they didn’t know her well at all. Beth was the school ‘turtle’: adorable, chatty, funny, studious—just not the kind to draw boys like Yolanda or Court. Even the fact that Beth had ‘official friends’ surprised her parents still.  
Mom effortlessly teased herself in through the crack of the door, her special turquoise satin dress rustling. She looked stunning, but all Beth could perceive was that irksome comment Mom had just made.  
It hammered Rick’s point in all over again. But Beth didn’t need a boyfriend to feel like she had a life. Nah-ah!  
“Looking good, by the way!” Beth remembered. “You and dad going out on a date night?”  
Beth stooped down to pick her bag from the floor. Next to lateness, untidiness was one of the biggest sacrileges in the Chapel household.  
“Oh, I wish!” Mom’s tone was dry. Tired even. Over the last couple of weeks work had piled up considerably at the not just the Blue Valley hospital but all other public amenities in town. Blue Valley was in the midst of a laborious resurrection, so to speak, after the trail of destruction the ISA had left in its wake three months ago. A re-election for Mayor was also in the horizon and campaigning was at peak level.  
“Another board dinner?” Beth guessed, squeezing out one of her infectious smiles.  
“Homecoming gala, more like.” Mom perched on the edge of the bed with a sigh. “For a businessman new to town. Big names, boring speeches, a lot of wine.” Mom returned Beth’s smile robotically. “So no, honey. No date night. You’ll understand these things one day.”  
“What’s not to understand?” Everybody was too busy for fun these days, Beth thought, then quickly regretted when the bite of Rick’s words revisited her.  
“But maybe we all need to let our hair down every once in a while—have some fun,” she commented, more to herself than Mom.   
“Did someone say fun?” Dad stepped in polishing his Rolex with the sleeve of his tux jacket. “A small bird once told me they were committed to some science project.”  
“And I just might show it to you, Daddio,” Beth laughed, knowing her ‘science project’ was a guise for trying to fix Chuck. “If you allow me more hours out?”  
“Honey, you know that’s not gonna happen. You ready, babe?”  
Mom glanced at Beth. “Why don’t you tag along, Honey?”  
“What? Me?” Beth pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “I don’t want to be a third wheel.” It was flattering, though, to know Mom cared. “You guys go on without me. I want to work on my science project.”  
“Again with that science project?” Dad shook his head incredulously. “That project has got to be hella huge. Give me at least a sneak peek, Beth.”  
Oh, snap!   
Beth didn’t have the time or energy to create a decoy science project to show Dad. And knowing her parents with all their scientific obsessions, the fake project would have to be one Frankenstein to be believable! Even bigger than Charles McNider’s Artificial Intelligence.  
“You know what, I actually could use some fresh air.” Beth wanted to pinch herself as Mom and Dad’s faces lit up. “Gala night it is!”

(Present time)

How could a place be so noisy and so quiet at the same time? How could anyone be so present and absent at the same time…like Yolanda?  
Courtney reached up her hand to pat her friend’s shoulder. It felt like patting a block of wood.  
Yolanda was staring across at the reception like there were circus monkeys juggling balls, her eyes wide and glimmering. She had seen Beth at the site of the accident, but it was Rick who was worrying Courtney more. There’d been blood on his shirt, and then he’d walked out saying what had happened to Beth was his fault?  
God, how long had he and Pat been out—half an hour? Where on Earth were they?  
“We need to find them.”  
“What?” Courtney started at Yolanda’s voice.  
“The Injustice Society.” Yolanda bore out her teeth, her emotions no longer tamed. “Who else?”  
Courtney inhaled quietly, measuring what she was going to say next. “Yolanda, we’re not sure it’s them. Not for now at least.”  
“Or you just don’t want to be sure.”   
The accusation bit like Icicle’s frost. Yolanda’s stare was intense and unrelenting, brimming with the indignation Courtney knew she still felt for losing Henry to the ISA three months ago.   
“Why is that, huh, Court?” she scowled.   
It made Courtney wince. She could tell where the conversation was headed.   
“I feel like a soda!” Courtney didn’t even look once at Yolanda before streaking out of the waiting room to a hallway opposite. Fortunately there was an actual soda machine there.  
Courtney pushed a button absently, the tightness in her chest stifling. Ever since the battle with the ISA three months ago, this happened to her often. Nervous fits, paranoia, nightmares. But it was the last thing the JSA needed, surely; for the team leader to be a mess.  
“Are you going to get that?”   
Courtney jumped, wheeling round to follow the voice.  
The boy behind her beamed, his dark hair shining under the fluorescent lights.  
Courtney’s heart literally back-flipped. “Cameron?”   
“Your soda.” The boy smirked, amused.   
And instantly Courtney noticed, embarrassed, that his eyes were too far apart to be Cameron. She was hallucinating. Again.  
The boy pointed at the can at the bottom of the soda machine. “It’s a Fanta, right? Not a Cameron.”  
“Oh!” Courtney bent over to claim her Fanta, the heat in her cheeks scalding.  
Honestly, the boy had actually sounded like Cameron. Gosh, why in the world was she even doing this now? Attracting unnecessary attention like this because she couldn’t stop thinking about Icicle’s son? Yes, that was all Cameron Mahkent could ever be to the JSA: the departed Icicle’s son. It didn’t matter whether he was innocent or not.  
“Look, I’m so sorry I confused you with somebody else…”  
“Robert,” the boy injected readily. He looked less and less like Cameron the more Courtney cared to notice. He even had a busted lip.  
“Robert, OK.” Courtney forced out a cordial laugh. “Again, so sorry,” she repeated awkwardly before rushing off.  
At last, Pat was back with Rick at the waiting room.  
“Where have you been?” Pat was giving her his mean dad look, with his eyebrow raised and his lips pursed. It was like he could see right through to Courtney’s crimes by just wishing it.  
“Soda!” Courtney held the can up like it were a trophy, secretly thankful that her excuse was feasible. “And you?” she cocked her head at Rick, who blinked at her like she were a statue. “What was that back there about everything being your fault?”  
“Forget it,” he shrugged casually, but the smears of blood on his shirt screamed otherwise. He looked like he’d just stepped out of a bush, with his hair and jacket in a mess. Was he from fighting something or someone?  
“Beth is in there seriously hurt!” Courtney reasoned. “We’re a team, guys! I need to know if you’re doing okay or not. This is important.”  
“What we need is to find the ISA,” Yolanda insisted.  
“The ISA?” Pat echoed, confused.  
“It’s Beth’s dad!” Rick shot up his chair like there were coals on them, dipping his hands into his back pockets.  
Cortney rarely ever saw him like that: jumpy and nervous.  
“I’ve got this,” Pat said, then walked up to the bespectacled man in a waistcoat and black blazer.  
Mr. Chapel’s face was shining with sweat. His hand was lightly bandaged from some kind of burn. Courtney edged closer to Pat to listen.  
“Mr. Chapel? I’m the Dad of Beth’s friend, you remember?”  
“Uh, yes. Dugan.”  
“Call me Pat. How’s Beth doing? Court and the rest are worried about her.”  
Mr. Chapel sighed heavily. “Not good…not good.”  
“How bad is it?”  
“The doctors tell me the blow to her head…it was too hard. She could be in here for weeks! God, even months.”  
“She’s fell into a coma?” Pat gasped, half-shouting.  
It caught Rick and Yolanda’s attention instantly.  
Courtney gestured a warning at Rick to not come any closer. She needed to hear more without them interrupting.  
“No, Pat,” Mr. Chapel spat bitterly. “Someone put Beth in a coma, or some…thing.”  
“You were at the party tonight,” Pat’s tone was soft and emphatic. He was good at getting answers, no matter how long it could take him.  
Courtney moved closer to the men, sheltering behind a pillar where Pat couldn’t see her even if he tried. This was what she had followed Pat for: answers about the attack at the gala.  
“What did you see, Mr. Chapel?”  
“Oh, everybody saw what I saw! A blue light, flying in and out of the building like some alien saucer.”  
“You had a closer look at it?” Pat pushed on cleverly.  
There was some hesitation on Mr. Chapel’s end, like a mood-switch was about to happen. Courtney peeped out at the two men facing each other, Pat’s back to her.  
Mr. Chapel rubbed his brow before looking up at Pat. “It was more like a staff, okay? Like Stargirl’s staff.”  
Courtney’s knees buckled at Mr. Chapel’s words. What did he mean a staff? Her staff had been in the basement all night. Also, her staff didn’t emit blue light.  
“A staff?” Pat sounded just as shocked as Courtney. “You sure about that, Mr. Chapel?”  
He shouldn’t have said that. Now, Mr. Chapel looked more upset than before. He clasped his waist, the frowns in his dark forehead deep and zigzag.   
“My daughter may not wake up from this, Mr. Dugan! Of course, I’m sure of what I saw. These super-heroes are all murderers and pretenders. They can’t fool me or the rest of Blue Valley now. No!”  
He stormed off, leaving Pat there confused.  
What was going on? Courtney didn’t know what to think.  
“Court, will Beth be all right?” Rick startled Courtney.  
Again, Courtney couldn’t tell what was going on with him. He was literally in her face now, his eyes bloodshot.  
It killed Courtney that she had to be the one to tell him…

******

**Author's Note:**

> That must've been a lot to take in! Expect more flashbacks, more changes in POV and an introduction to the main villain next chapter.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Like, comment, critique in the comment if you can. I'd really appreciate your feedback.


End file.
